Blog: Opinion, views and commentary

One hundred years ago, in 1915, Good Friday fell on 2 April. While their families were going to church and preparing fish dinners, the Anzacs stationed in training camps near Cairo, Egypt, went on a rampage. The 'Battle of Wazza' took place in Cairo's red light district. Parts of Derb el Wasa and Haret el Wasser(known affectionately as 'The Wozzer', Wassir, Wasser, Wassar etc.) were gutted.…

Yesterday afternoon, Peter Ward passed away after a long illness. Peter is best known for his work as an official army photographer, both film and still, in Vietnam from 1969 to 1970. The Photographs, Film and Sound Section of the Australian War Memorial offer a small sample of his work from the National Collection.
WAR/70/0018/VN
During this period of the centenary of Anzac, it is easy …

Public Talk:
2015 Australian Summer Scholars Presentations
Thursday 19 February, 2 pm – 3.30 pm
BAE Systems Theatre
Australian War Memorial
Presentations for the 2015 Australian War Memorial Summer Vacation Scholarship Scheme will take place on Thursday 19 February in the BAE Systems Theatre at the Australian War Memorial, 2 pm – 3.30 pm.
This year the three presentations feature Mr Shaun Mawdsley (Massey University) on the creation …

Yesterday at the Christ Church in Queanbeyan NSW the funeral of a local community stalwart, Bede Tongs OAM MMwas conducted. Amongst the many mourners inside andoutside the Churchwere several current and ex-members of staff and senior management of the Australian War Memorial including yours truly. It is tremendously hard to put into so few words what a positiveimpact Bede had not just on me personally and professionally, but on my …

How best to remember someone?
In the past, when someone died, some people created scrap books or dossiers as a way of working through their grief and gathering together all the memorabilia. This is what Maude Edmondson did when her son died at Tobruk in 1941, in an action for which he received a Victoria Cross.
A collection compiled by Maude Edmondson after the death of her son, donated to the Australian War Memorial.
How are loved ones…

The Melbourne Cup - the race that stops a nation - has run once more, for the hundred and fifty-fourth time, and most of the punters have probably collected their winnings. In 1915 the Cup was already more than 50 years old: a well-entrenched institution on the Australian social calendar. At Gallipoli that year, the officers of the 1st Light Horse Brigade (no doubt among many others) had organised a sweepstake for the Cup, and naturally …

Military history plays an important part in defining chapters in the history of individual nations. Its impacts reach into most aspects of life and experience not only during the time of conflict but also before and after the event. Isolating the period of conflict from the social or political history has the potential to become an orchard in which the fruit of myth grows ripe. Some argue that in the context of Australia’s experience …

This month’s sound reel depicts Lawrence of Arabia in a light not usually seen. It contains the sometimes frank opinions of four Australian contemporaries of Lieutenant Colonel T E Lawrence CB DSO.
Lieutenant Colonel Lawrence, also known as Lawrence of Arabia, was a British Army advisor to the Hejaz Army in Jordan and Saudi Arabia. In this sound reel is a significant recording from the Memorial’s collection, that of a speech by …

Former Australian prisoners of war are rescued by the crew of USN submarine USS Pampanito (SS-383). These men survived the sinking of two Japanese troop transports, the Kachidoki Maru and the Rakuyo Maru by Pampanito and USS Sealion II (SS-315) on 12 September 1944 respectively. P03651.005
Seventy years ago this week, on 12 September 1944, two Japanese ships transporting …

At the battle of Bitapaka, the ANMEF were the first Australians in combat.
The Bitapaka road. The first objective of the New Guinea expedition was the German wireless station at Bitapaka, a few miles inland from Blanche Bay, which at the outbreak of war was still in the course of construction, but was hurriedly finished and ready for use. A03146
The two scouts pushed into …